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In Hovering Flight | 
| Author: Joyce Hinnefeld
Publisher: Unbridled Books
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $12.47
You Save: $12.48 (50%)
New (34) Used (8) Collectible (5) from $12.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  4 reviews
Sales Rank: 38948
Media: Hardcover
Edition: First
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.1
ISBN: 1932961585
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9781932961584
ASIN: 1932961585
Publication Date: September 16, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand New. 100% money back guarantee. All books shipped from Strand Bookstore, New York City, USA.
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Product Description
At 34 years of age, Scarlet has come home for the passing of her famous mother, the bird artist Addie Kavanaugh. The year is 2002. Though Addie and her husband, the world-renowned ornithologist Tom Kavanaugh, have made their life in southeastern Pennsylvania, Addie has chosen to die at the home of her dearest friend, Cora. This is because their ramshackle cottage in Burnham, Pennsylvania, is filled with so much history and because, in the last ten years or so, even birdsong has seemed to make Addie angry, or sad, or both. These are the things that Scarlet needs to understand. Cora and Lou (the third woman in Addie's circle) will help Scarlet to see her mother in full. In addition, Scarlet carries her own secret into these foggy days-a secret for Addie, one that involves Cora, too. Joyce Hinnefeld's debut novel is rich in so many ways beyond the taut mother-daughter dynamic and the competition among even the closest of women. The natural world, an artist's vision, the intensity of long-lasting love, the flight of a bird's song and the sighting of an extinct-or perhaps illusory-samll creature all work to shape the plot of the novel. Even the prose seems filled with birdsong-at once raucous and transporting. In its structure and style, In Hovering Flight follows in the tradition of writers like Virginia Woolf, Harriet Doerr and Carol Shields: musical and dramatic, with myriad stories and voices. But the evocative language of this soaring novel is Hinnefeld's own.
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| Customer Reviews:
 a soaring new talent October 23, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book is a gentle look at the many forms of passion-- for a cause, a friendship, a lover, a spouse, a child, a way of life--and how they can come full circle in the course of a life. The main theme is environmentalism, but so many different stories and years are woven into it that its tapestry is almost too rich to describe. This is Hinnefeld's
debut novel--it's clearly the start of what will be a brilliant career for her.
(3.5) "No notebook this day, no sleep this night." September 14, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
In what is nominally a mother-daughter drama, scenes of the past played out against the recent death of Addie Kavanaugh, an ornithologist and artist as is her professor husband, Tom, the author attempts to elucidate, in the most subtle manner, the heady seduction of untrammeled creativity, in this case, the study of birds that animates Addie's entire life as well as that of her spouse. At a small Pennsylvania college, Addie absorbs the pleasures of Tom's class, his poetic tendencies in the study or ornithology and his devotion to this unique and diverse species. Drawn to one another in spite of his yet-to-be-dissolved marriage, Addie and Tom create something of a scandal at this college in the late 1960s, Addie evidencing a lifelong disregard for the opinions of others. Their universe defined by devotion to their specialty, Addie and Tom enjoy a rarified existence, although the real time problems of a degrading environment and unpopular war eventually intrude.
The tale begins immediately after Addie's second bout with cancer and her death after refusing traditional treatment. At the home of best friend, Cora, Addie draws her last breath, surrounded by her loved ones, Tom, her daughter, Scarlet, Cora and the third member of an unbreakable trio, Lou. Never conventional, Addie has requested an unusual solution for her remains, perhaps illegal, the family sorting through the inevitable complications of fulfilling her wishes. Grieving, Scarlet listens as Cora, Lou and Tom reminisce, searching for answers about an enigmatic mother whose early enthusiasm for her chosen career is later sidetracked by the despoiling of the environment, her embrace of lively winged creatures turned to obsession with the dead and dying birds that reflect a poisoned land. It is this complex, inscrutable mother with whom Scarlet seeks finally to make her peace.
While Hinnefeld's prose attempts to soar above the petty dramas of marriage, family, career and society's abominable environmental failures, the curious, inspired Addie of the first part of the novel is, by the end, an embittered, intractable and tedious Janie-one-note. Her response to the unfairness of life is shrill and angry, her art focused on dead birds at the same time she battles cancer. Tom's constant adoration and Scarlet's ambivalence about her mother cannot rise above the image of a talented woman grown cynical and disappointed. In spite of the love affair between these two east coast ornithologists, there is a palpable lack of passion, the author failing to garner even my reluctant sympathy for these characters, Addie, Tom and Scarlet as remote as the campus where Tom teaches. Weighed down by time and circumstance, Addie remains tethered to the earth. Luan Gaines/2008.
 deeply touched September 12, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I turned to this novel because I've always loved birds. And the story of these people who, like me, appreciate birds and the natural world moved me for that reason. But, even more, this novel touched me deeply, even made me cry over and over, because of the way it depicts both the deep beauty of human relationships and the losses that are involved in loving deeply. I started to read the book early one Sunday, and couldn't put it down, read it right through the day until 1 a.m. And now I've loaned it to a good friend, but I can't wait until she gives it back, because I want to read it again, to immerse myself in it once more. It's not often that I wish to re-read a book I've just finished. I recommend the book highly."
A terrific character study September 7, 2008
5 out of 9 found this review helpful
Renowned aviary and overall environmental artist Addie Sturmer Kavanagh is dying from cancer. She makes a final death wish to "clear orders for a brazenly illegal burial". Meanwhile her thirtyish years old daughter Scarlet comes home not to just to bury her mom, but to finally understand her mom. Even her death request is so Addie, weird to anyone except perhaps the inner sanctum.
Addie was just another bored art major when she fell in love with Professor Tom Kavanagh and his passion for birds. They became a formidable entry in the environmental activist movements and antiwar protests. Some time after Scarlet is born, Addie changed from gung ho bird lover to outraged political warrior. Her tormented switch left Scarlet and to a degree Tom behind; now Scarlet needs to know from Addie's beloved friends Cora and Lou why to include a special funeral at the Jersey shore instead of her Pennsylvania home.
The key to this terrific character study is the seemingly dysfunctional relationship between mother and daughter. Scarlet has felt neglected by her mom all her life; in fact she believes the search for proof that the Cuvier's Knight is an extinct aviary species superseded her needs. Still IN HOVERING FLIGHT pattern, Scarlet wants to soar like her mom did, but before she can use her wings she needs to know why in her opinion the environment and birds meant more to Addie than her daughter ever did. This is a superb relationship drama.
Harriet Klausner
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